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Greening Up by Cutting Down on Plastic Bags

Elizabeth Doctor brings in plastic bags to reuse at Whole Foods in Jericho, N.Y.Credit
Phil Marino for The New York Times

GROCERY clerks may no longer need to ask “paper or plastic?” if local efforts to recycle plastic bags and promote reusable bags gain momentum. But changing the habits of generations of shoppers may be an uphill battle.

Sturdy and easy to use, plastic bags have come to dominate checkout lines since their introduction in 1977. They are not only cheaper to make than paper ones, but also require less energy to recycle and less landfill space. But environmental concerns about their biodegradability and the oil used to produce them, not to mention the unsightliness of bags getting caught on branches and being discarded by the side of the road, led San Francisco in March to become the first city in the country to ban nonbiodegradable plastic bags in large grocery and drug stores.

Last month, New Haven considered a proposal, modeled on San Francisco’s, that would have banned nonbiodegradable plastic bags in supermarkets that gross more than $3 million a year and in most pharmacies.

A vote was delayed until the fall, said Roland Lemar, a Democratic alderman from East Rock, Conn., and a co-sponsor. “It will be brought back again in September, and we will meet with people from the plastic industry, grocers and others, because the members of the committee wanted more details,” he said.

Similar bag-banning measures are being considered in Boston; Baltimore; Oakland, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; Santa Monica, Calif.; and Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Biodegradable bags, however, may not necessarily create less waste, according to Robert M. Lilienfeld, author of “Use Less Stuff” (Ballantine Books, 1998) which urges consumers to reduce waste by reducing consumption. Not all biodegradable bags are equal, he said, adding that only those that go to industrial compost plants, as opposed to landfills, actually degrade.

Biodegradable bags also cost more to make.

“Plastic bags are probably about one penny, paper is three pennies and biodegradable plastic bags, made of potato or cornstarch, are about eight cents,” said James S. Alesi, a Republican state senator from the Rochester area who proposed one of several bills last session that dealt with plastic bags. His proposal sought to give businesses until 2010 to reduce their use of plastic bags by 50 percent; the other bill, introduced by Senator Carl L. Marcellino, a Republican from Syosset, N.Y., sought to require retail stores larger than 10,000 square feet to establish recycling programs. Both senators said they hoped to reintroduce their bills next year.

Barry F. Scher, a spokesman for Giant Food, the grocery chain based in Landover, Md., said that instead of banning plastic bags, litter laws should be enforced.

“Bags don’t litter — people litter,” he said. “There needs to be more citizen education.”

At a Waldbaum’s in Jericho, N.Y., signs behind the cashiers urge shoppers to “B.Y.O.B. — bring your own bag” and list statistics like the 100 billion plastic shopping bags used annually and the number of marine mammals that die each year from eating discarded plastic bags. Still, not a single customer one day this spring carried a reusable bag and several admitted they were unlikely to convert.

“I would never be convinced to bring my own bags. Never,” Kathy Young of Dix Hills, N.Y., said recently as she pushed a shopping cart loaded with plastic bags of groceries and her young twins, Dylan and Sarah. “I can hardly remember what I need to get here, let alone bring my own bags.”

“People might not be aware that plastic bags are not only recycled into millions of pounds of decking, piers, posts and fencing, but they are also being recycled back into other bags,” she said.

Keith Christman, senior director of packaging for the plastics division of the American Chemistry Council, which represents plastics manufacturers, cited a recent survey that found more than 90 percent of Americans reuse plastic bags, for things like trash disposal, lunch bags and pet pickup. He said plastic bags also produce a lot less waste than paper.

“It was illustrated vividly at a hearing where a stack of 500 paper bags was two feet high and heavy and 500 plastic bags was two inches high,” Mr. Christman said. “It requires seven times as many trucks to move an equivalent number of paper bags. The environmental profile of plastic is better than alternatives. It is an environmentally responsible choice to reuse them and recycle them.”

Few people, however, take bags back to stores to be recycled.

“It’s just not being done,” said Mr. Lemar, the alderman from New Haven. “Changing personal behavior is much harder than manufacturers’ recognizing that the product itself is deficient and they need to do something to change the product.”

Many who turn to reusable bags say they do so because they grow tired of the avalanche of plastic bags at home.

At the Whole Foods Market in Jericho, Mindy Cronk of Glen Cove on Long Island stuffed plastic bags into blue recycling bins. “I bring the plastic bags here because I have way too many at home,” she said. “I was happy to find a place to recycle them.”

Whole Foods Market offers 10 cents back on every bag shoppers reuse. Its reusable Green Bags are displayed at the checkout counter for $1.50 each. Last month, it began selling a limited supply of $15 reusable cotton bags by the London designer Anya Hindmarch to raise awareness. The bags, which read “I’m not a plastic bag,” have sold out at a number of stores.

Other chains in the area, like Wegmans, Trader Joe’s and A&P, are also selling reusable bags.

Some feel that charging shoppers for plastic bags will persuade them to use reusable ones, but Senator Marcellino disagrees. “It’s a problem for people who are struggling to make ends meet,” he said.

Sarah Burton of Summit began using cloth bags 20 years ago. She said that she was influenced by the information her children were bringing home from school, and that to change people’s habits, awareness should begin in school.